It's Motorway almost to the door of the hotel. Par time from the Handy Cross (High Wycombe) junction of the M40 is around two hours with a clear run.For those comfortable with the Birmingham runs, either during the 1990s and early 2000s in the city centre or more recently at the Airport, it's a bit further, but it's not as if you are going to Aberystwyth or Llandudno.

Actually, there's a direct train from Sandwell & Dudley to Telford Central. The hardest part of that journey is the 1.5 mile walk from where I live to the station if there isn't a bus - and I don't think there is on Sunday (or Bank Holiday Monday). I've commuted to Telford before for the 4NCL when I visited last year to input some games since it was a split weekend, but I could arrive at noon on Sunday, which is rather later than I'll need to arrive if I'm arbiting.

Jonathan Rogers wrote:I couldn't quite work out where White went wrong in Arkell v Fernandez

Me, too. So I settled for something easier:

I can! Obviously I was completely winning from pretty much the opening onwards, and continued to turn the screws until I had one of the strangest blind spots ( if I can call it that) of my life. Simply recapturing on h5 with my Queen keeps things firmly under control, but I thought I'd be a bit clever and play 1 Qh6 first, follow up with 2 Nf5, and only then play 3 Qxh5. Clearly he is prevented from playing 1...Rg6 because of 2 Qf8 mate. Except, of course, Qf8 isn't mate

This weird incident gave away a vital tempo after which I think he can hold the draw. That I found a way to self-destruct completely, after that, beggars belief. I think I just couldn't accept that I had let him of the hook in such a strange way. Daniel was quite taken aback when I resigned, so I showed him that he is winning a Rook in all variations.

I can laugh at it now ( and even at the time, as my team had already won the match) but the final position is lost because in a key line he forks my Rooks on d4 and d6 with the move ...Ke5, because I have a pesky pawn on d5

MartinCarpenter wrote:Best explanation I've seen for White Rose 2 is that its a hangover from losing all the time in Division 1 - once a team gets used to losing on a regular basis it can be quite hard to remember how not to! Hopefully they'll get it back together.

You could be correct, but Sussex Martlets haven't experienced this; I have noticed that there has been a slight personnel change on the White Rose 2 team compared with previous years, so perhaps these players aren't quite as strong

Seems quite possible looking at it - WR2 were quite good for the first weekend, somewhat less so for the last one. There has been a mild 'problem' for a while in that their strength in depth isn't so great now that a load of Yorkshire players are playing for different people in Div3N instead.

We'll see Their top boards do seem to still be very solid/consistent in turning out, so they'd very likely get back up again fast even if it does go a bit wrong.